The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6 eBook

Lamb told Moore that he had hitherto always felt an
antipathy to him, but henceforward should like him.

Crabb Robinson writes:—­

“April 4th.—­Dined at Monkhouse’s.
Our party consisted of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb,
Moore, and Rogers. Five poets of very unequal
worth and most disproportionate popularity, whom the
public probably would arrange in the very inverse
order, except that it would place Moore above Rogers.
During this afternoon, Coleridge alone displayed any
of his peculiar talent. He talked much and well.
I have not for years seen him in such excellent health
and spirits. His subjects metaphysical criticism—­Wordsworth
he chiefly talked to. Rogers occasionally let
fall a remark. Moore seemed conscious of his
inferiority. He was very attentive to Coleridge,
but seemed to relish Lamb, whom he sat next. L.
was in a good frame—­kept himself within
bounds and was only cheerful at last.... I was
at the bottom of the table, where I very ill performed
my part.... I walked home late with Lamb.”

Many years later Robinson sent to The Athenaeum (June
25, 1853) a further and fuller account of the evening.]

LETTER 315

CHARLES LAMB TO B.W. PROCTER

April 13th, 1823.

Dear Lad,—­You must think me a brute beast,
a rhinoceros, never to have acknowledged the receipt
of your precious present. But indeed I am none
of those shocking things, but have arrived at that
indisposition to letter-writing, which would make
it a hard exertion to write three lines to a king
to spare a friend’s life. Whether it is
that the Magazine paying me so much a page, I am loath
to throw away composition—­how much a sheet
do you give your correspondents? I have hung up
Pope, and a gem it is, in my town room; I hope for
your approval. Though it accompanies the “Essay
on Man,” I think that was not the poem he is
here meditating. He would have looked up, somehow
affectedly, if he were just conceiving “Awake,
my St. John.” Neither is he in the “Rape
of the Lock” mood exactly. I think he has
just made out the last lines of the “Epistle
to Jervis,” between gay and tender,

“And
other beauties envy Worsley’s eyes.”

I’ll be damn’d if that isn’t the
line. He is brooding over it, with a dreamy phantom
of Lady Mary floating before him. He is thinking
which is the earliest possible day and hour that she
will first see it. What a miniature piece of
gentility it is! Why did you give it me?
I do not like you enough to give you anything so good.

I have dined with T. Moore and breakfasted with Rogers,
since I saw you; have much to say about them when
we meet, which I trust will be in a week or two.
I have been over-watched and over-poeted since Wordsworth
has been in town. I was obliged for health sake
to wish him gone: but now he is gone I feel a
great loss. I am going to Dalston to recruit,
and have serious thoughts—­of altering my
condition, that is, of taking to sobriety. What
do you advise me?